We're Back !

A week in the sun on a sensational Fiji island. What bliss, followed by 3 days of some strange stomach bug contacted-we think- on the return flight of an airline we shall not name.
Sadly our New Year's Resolutions were not heeded. The ones we made for others. As always the Daily Telegraph is obsessed with the Ibrahim family with endless gushing stories of this family whose rise in Kings Cross over the past few years has mirrored the downfall of the wonderful and diverse nightclub area of Sydney.

There are other guilty parties though.

Hey guys- when Abe Saffron (right)  Mr Sin, ran the Cross he kept a very low profile. Very. The Shuttle met the Ibrahims many moons ago in The Tunnel, their first nightclub. It was at a PR promotion for something or other and they eagerly begged to be in the social pages (at the time we worked for one of Sydney's Sunday newspapers.) After pleasantries we politely declined. Since then they have risen to great heights aided by a few social writers who should know better. It will all end in tears.

New Year Resolutions

Just a few we have made for other people :

a.The Daily Mail will hire extra sub-editors after this clanger in their headline about Soraya Kashoggi ( The Shuttle worked for Adnan Kashoggi for a few years)

 b. Columnists who should know better will finally abandoned their fantasy of an affair between James Packer and  Miranda Kerr which reached a fever pitch after the Shuttle's April Fool Joke that brought a dozen enquiries from local and international media when the phony snaps could easily be found via Google. We have said for ages : we know who James is dating and while we are sworn to secrecy she is not famous and leads a very private life.

c. Same columnists will abandon their love affair with the Ibraham family of entrepreneurs whose rise in Kings Cross has mirrored the downfall of the same with drunken yob filled streets and 'one-punch' killings.

Newspaper of The Year Photo Drama

The Sunday Telegraph, recipient of the Newspaper of The Award in the annual News Awards has been involved in a drama about a photograph they have published to day of nightclub tsar John Ibrahim- the man whose enemies keep (literally) taking pot shots at with very dangerous guns.

Ibrahim lunched at Otto's last Tuesday for the Melbourne Cup celebrations and later attended Famous Magazine's Flapper & Dapper Melbourne Cup party held at one of his Kings Cross nightclubs, The Piano Bar.

The Shuttle was at another table at Otto's with friends and asked the maître de to ask Mr Ibrahim if he would mind posing for a photo (we are ever so polite).
Word came back that he declined as he said he wished to stay out of the media at present (for good reason).
 Just to show there were no hard feelings we took one anyway.

Read the story here at the Sunday Telegraph (Newspaper Of The Year!)

Spotted ! : sitting quietly at a table at the Cosmopolitan Cafe in Double Bay, accompanied by a very large gentleman, ex-crime boss Bill Bayeh (John Ibrahim once worked for his brother Louis Bayeh when the pair 'ran' the Cross).
Bayeh was released from Silverwater Jail in July after serving 15 years for drug charges .It was from the Cosmopolitan Coffee Lounge on Darlinghurst Road in Kings Cross (not related to the Double Bay cafe) that Bayeh ran his lucrative drug empire between December 1995 and July 1996, raking in a reported $2.5 million in six months.
As part of his parole he is forbidden from entering the Kings Cross nightclub area.

Melbourne Cup Hat Of The Day

In the end, it looked like the QANTAS debacle was a bonus for Sydney with every pub, bar, restaurant, hotel ballroom, park and garden packed with hundreds of people celebrating the Melbourne Cup.

John Ibrahim & Chelsea Mitchell

Charlotte Dawson & pals

There were parties everywhere one looked.

A few of the smartest : the  Moët & Chandon party at the W Hotel hosted by TV personality Charlotte Dawson with a room full of good looking young punters including Liberty & Somer Watson from Coco Ribbon in London's Notting Hill Gate plus some fine food and plenty of champers.

The Chandon luncheon in Centennial Park with social heavyweights like Glen Marie Frost, Deeta Colvin, Melissa Hoyer and Victoria Morish and top party designer James Gordon.

Sharon Sargeant & Frank Monte

Liberty & Somer Watson, Alison Barton-Chen

The Finger Wharf, which the W Hotel forms part of, had a dozen parties with every restaurant packed to the rafters, with the very swish Otto's booked out weeks beforehand.

Cup cakes at the W

Radio king John Laws was there with wife Caroline and Malcolm Coppleson , Frank Monte with party girl Sharon Sargeant and keeping a low profile, nightclub tsar John Ibrahim with his girlfriend Chelsea hosting a table with about a dozen friends.




At the Cup itself at Flemington Racecourse in Melbourne , international stars were few on the ground.
Shane Warne and Elizabeth Hurley failed to show nor did Joan Collins. Kim Kardashian is in Sydney for a party tonight (pursued by the world's media)

The W Hotel

But they will be there on Oak's Day (Thursday) which is far more genteel and fashionable, along with Sarah Jessica Parker who flew in to Melbourne on Monday but lunched at the Chandon's Greenpoint Brasserie in the Yarra Valley. The only star of note at the Cup-actor Adrian Grenier.


And amongst the wild and wacky costumes that appear on Cup day-the prize goes to multi-millionaire self promoter Dick Smith for his simple but effective Dick Smith's Ozemite hat !. That's Dick's political statement on his annoyance that the iconic Aussie spread Vegemite has been snapped up by a foreign corporation and a clever plug for the new spread he is marketing.

British Tabloid Discovers Our John !



John Ibrahim & pals



The web newspaper that garners more hits than any other on the planet-over 30 million a month has run a long piece on Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim who regularly graces what passes for 'social' pages in the colonies.



The Mail Online has delved into Ibrahim's connections to Australia's Got Talent judge and  former member of Irish boy band Westlife, Brian McFadden who is engaged to pop princess Delta Goodrem.

It's all very reminiscent of the Kray Twins and their show-biz connections in London in the 1960s.

 Regular Shuttle readers will be well acquainted with the ever so charming head of the large Ibrahim family who we encounter at all manner of smart parties and product launches. He is an honoured guest at the private pool bar at John Hemmes Ivy nightclub complex and Ibrahim  himself owns shares in around 20 nightclubs in Kings Cross and the Golden Mile, gay Oxford Street. Much in the same way the late Abe Saffron seemed to own a piece of the action in every nite spot in town.



Brian McFadden & Delta Goodrem

 To consolidate business affairs, John also provides an army of security personnel to guard the premises, bouncers and so on although  his girlfriend actually has the much coveted security license necessary to operate.

John's business affairs seem to be rather complicated but they have brought him great riches including a huge mansion in Dover Heights that overlooks the Pacific Ocean and Bondi Beach. In his early 40s his contact list is extensive and he regularly travels to  Dubai and Las Vegas often meeting with party girl Paris Hilton.

 It's recently been disclosed that he made an $150K payment to the NSW Crime Commission although Ibrahim claims it was a "tax debt". Apparently the original sum was $800K and John's lawyers managed to 'negotiate' it down to the smaller amount. The Crime Commission is accomodating like that.

The payment happened in 2005 when Ibrahim was facing court for threatening a witness and perverting the course of justice although all charges were eventually dismissed. 



Fadi Ibrahim

Not that John hasn't had his problems. Younger brother Fadi Ibrahim and his girlfriend were almost assassinated in 2009 by a hail of bullets as they sat in their Lamborghini outside Fadi's mansion. Poor Fadi had part of his stomach removed in hospital and it wasn't his gorgeous fiancee's first appointment with drama either.

Her former fiance Faouzi Abou-Jibal was gunned down in a park in 2009 and thus avoided a pending trial for the stabbing of the Fat Pizza TV series actor George Nassour and his brother, Robin.

Now Fadi's girlfriend Shayda Bastani, has been charged with conspiracy to murder a man alleged to have been the hooded man who shot at the pair in their Lamborghini.

Matters just get more complicated from hereon. John & Fadi's sister has been charged with "recklessly dealing with proceeds of crime" after police found she had, as one does, over $3 million in $50 & $100 notes concealed in the ceiling of her suburban house.. Perhaps a former tenant left it behind.

Older brother Sam Ibrahim is the president of the Nomads Motorcycle Club which the coppers reckon is an organised criminal gang. Sam has been charged with 2 kneecappings and running a cocaine distribution service. Even John's young son Daniel from a previous liaison was charged with affray after an incident on the Gold Coast outside a nightclub.

John featured in the top hit TV series Underbelly in 2009 when it concentrated on crime and police corruption in Kings Cross. He was portrayed as a bodyguard for crime baron George Freeman although people say he was really just a driver for Freeman who ran illegal casinos all over town.

 Freeman's 33 Club in Oxford Street was a favourite haunt of then NSW Premier Robin Askin, who like police chief Louis Renault (Claude Rains) in Rick's Bar in Casablanca said he was "shocked, absolutely shocked" when the Opposition claimed in Parliament that Sydney was awash with illegal gambling dens. Like Renault, Askin regularly pocketed his winnings at the 33 Club craps table.

The Shuttle must confess it  has form here. As shown in Underbelly, John & Fadi first got their break when they managed to take a controlling share of the Tunnel Nightclub. At a party there for the launch of a new perfume it was  the Shuttle that first propelled the 2 brothers on the road to society page stardom when we snapped the two enterprising youngsters with some sexy girls and published the pic in a Sunday newspaper. They've never looked back really !

A very famous blow job

It's becoming the most famous blow job since actor Hugh Grant got busted on the Sunset Strip just as Devine Brown was about to dive into his crutch.

Emma Booth as Hollingsworth

Kim Hollingsworth's hilarious blow-job scene in the hugely popular Underbelly The Golden Mile which is drawing audiences on Sunday nights of up to 3 million viewers.

A facebook group has started, The underbelly blow job which has over 55,000 members.

It's dedicated to the scene from the premiere last Sunday week when prospective hooker, the real life Kim Hollingsworth, played by Emma Booth began working as a prostitute in Kings Cross and  entertained her first client in a motel. 

When the client says 'I just want a blow job" Hollingsworth bends down, unzips the punter's fly, takes out his penis and starts gently blowing on it. Well she was a Convent girl. Hollingsworth worked as a prostitute for a few years before joining appropriately, the NSW police where she was posted back to-yes-Kings Cross.

Holingsworth was eventually drummed out of the force when her hooker past was revealed and the fact she had had an affair with Kings Cross identity John Ibrahim whilst still in uniform. Hollingsworth sued for unfair dismissal and initially lost but then made a small fortune modelling for men's magazines and Playboy.

Kim Hollingsworth

Last night she gave an interview on '60 Minutes' in which she described how she had had sex with "thousands of men' before being successful in her application to join the police force. Whilst training at the academy she was recognised by a detective who asked her to work in a brothel he was opening. When she complained to the powers that be, she was asked to return to the Cross and work as an undercover cop in the disguise of a prostitute. When she appealed her dismissal  from the force the police were ordered to re-instate her. Holingsworth eventually left the force after persistent harassment and is now an animal rights activist.

Peter O'Brien as Freeman

     Just how close is the new Underbelly series to the real thing ?. There is much muttering from those who were around at the time the series is set in-the 80's and 90's about inaccuracies. The 'overlord' of the Cross is depicted as the 'colorful racing identity'  George Freeman played by Miranda Otto's husband Peter O'Brien who appears as a mentor to the young John Ibrahim who at  age 40 now  controls Kings Cross nightlife. But Ibrahim would have been in shorts and still at school in the early 1980's when Freeman reigned supreme running protection rackets and several illegal gambling casinos. Freeman was dead by 1990 when he had largely been out of Kings Cross activities for a few years and Ibrahim just 20.

And so far there hasn't been a single mention of the true crime boss of Kings Cross-Abe Saffron, or Mr Sin as he was dubbed, who died in 2006  and who from the late 1940's either controlled all strip joints , gambling casinos, prostitution and anything that made an illegal buck or had a share in these illegal activities and a army of stand over men who exercised control. 
In his 2008 book, "Gentle Satan: My Father, Abe Saffron" Alan Saffron described how as a schoolboy, every afternoon he would go to his father's motel where his headquarters were located and went to a special room to count bundles of money into colour coded paper bags with each colour representing different bribes-to police  magistrates and even the state premier Sir Robert Askin. Perhaps Abe will pop up as the series progresses.

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Accidents Happen is the gorgeous Geena Davis's latest film and it had it's world premier at the Cremorne Orpheum last Thursday night.

Geena and her co-stars (c)tSS

Geena & husband Reza Jarharry (c)tSS

 Descibed as a 'black comedy' it's about a family beset by a series of accidents and how they cope with them.

Filmed in downtown St Ives on the North Shore of Sydney 2 years ago, the all Australian cast speak with American accidents.
The film is set in Connecticut.

Teflon John needs to tone down that profile.

Arriving in Sydney in the early 1990's tSS was fortunate to land a job on a local newspaper covering the inner city. The main beat was  Darlinghurst-the Golden Mile of gay Oxford Street , it's surroundings and Kings Cross.

Dawn-ran Oxford Street

 It was an eye-opener. Oxford Street truly was fun city with all manner of night clubs and bars with every taste catered for. It was friendly  and packed every night. Sure it was run by some questionable characters like the late  Roger Claude Teyssedre. who had arrived from France penniless and was a multi millionaire within 5 years. Claude died in mysterious circumstances with his lover  by his bed-Ludwig Gertsch who 18 months later was found strangled and trussed up in a sleeping bag in the Blue Mountains, his murderer still free.

 Or the one time champion lesbian ice skater turned nightclub mogul Dawn O'Donnell. A lovely lady to dine with who could talk for hours on which lesbian porn sold to straight men in huge quantities over an after dinner cigar. Dawn would know-she owned a few shops openly selling illicit hard core adult porn.

Costellos fan?

Kings Cross was something else. Drugs prostitution and live sex shows that made Amserdam look decidedly tame. And there was supposed to be a bar called Costellos beneath the giant Coca Cola sign where 12 year old boys were on tap at the bar.  At a later Royal Commission witnesses swore it was true and one even claimed  improbably that the late American actor Karl Malden had once visited the bar. Wacky stuff.  

And the police. Well they ran the show as journalist Michael Duffy points out in his piece on 2 books to be released by 2 honest cops that got run out of town for their efforts. tSS recalls one quite scary lunch at the Bourbon and Beefsteak hosted by 4 Kings Cross detectives which we thought was some sort of community and neighbourhood watch get-together. It turned out to be a boozy afternoon where one couldn't actually leave and the tales we heard about who did what  to whom and who ran who and was on the take and which politician was in whose pocket just wasn't what one wished to know. Well certainly not from the cops. Fortunately they got so drunk one was able to slip out carefully ripping our name tag into tiny pieces. 

Sir Joh-premier of the corrupt Sunshine Coast

The excellent reporter Chris Master of the ABC who exposed Queensland's police corruption in the 1980's amongst govermment figures and police under the premier Sir Joh Belke Petersen, has been giving out a warning to 'Teflon 'John Ibraham, the current Kings Cross bigwig . Masters says John's profile will be boosted so much by the Underbellly TV series his life will be in danger. Masters knows what he is talking about. When his film on the Sunshine State corruption was broadcast the state's Police Commissioner Sir Terry Lewis  immediately fled back to his native UK only to be discovered by Scotland Yard detectives a year later living in luxury in  Richmond . He did 8 years in jthe Boggo Road jail after being extradited back to Oz.

Sunday sees the 2 hour premiere of

Underbelly 3, TheGolden Mile that continues the tale of the extraordinary corruption of police and the rule of gangsters during the 1980/1990's before a Royal Commission finally put paid to a scene that would have made Al Capone envious. The then king of Kings Cross, the 5'4" Abe Saffron known as Mr Sin was only finally put behind bars for tax evasion, just like Capone,despite having a finger in every piece of action.

friendly Teflon John

 The series also brings up to date the new breed of local entrepreneurs who now rule Kings Cross, namely our ever friendly luncheon pal John Ibrahim whose career we have watched flourish ever since he and his younger brother Fadi cornered us in his first nightclub, The Tunnel in a back laneway and demanded we promote him in the local rag. Why not?. They seemed nice enough lads and despite police saying Telflon John is now a major 'leading crime figure' he is certainly charming..The Tunnel was eventualy shut down when the Chinese triad murdered 2 men outside it's entrance, hacking them to pieces.

According to Masters the new ruling mafia in town are the bikie gangs who are so organised they have left authorities scratching their heads in bewilderment. And they don't take prisoners. Masters warns that this is new breed of crim who holds no respect for rank and privilege, as enjoyed by Ibrahim at present, and will ruthlessly remove him. They are called bikie gangs but they drive Mercedes and BMWs and wear designer suits. It's said Ibrahim has an interest in about 8 Kings Cross nightclubs and nearly all bouncers in every club including Oxford Street's gay strip are controlled by his firm. The bikies have their own security firm who would like a share of the action.


 

One honest copper forced out by the bent ones was Deborah Locke who has written a superb book Watching The Detectives in which she describes attempting to report serious misconduct at the Parramatta Police Headquarters only to be taken to lunch by a head honcho with Louis Bayeh-the then drug baron of the Cross and currently doing a few years in prison .It's a superb and racy read and you can order it at Deborah's website.
 

Another great read is Dirty Work by an honest ex-cop Glen McNamara who fled to California after attempting to report bent cops only to find there was a contract on his life. He was tracked down in an LA motel with a chilling phone call from hitmen saying that they knew where he was, whereupon his pregnant wife miscarried. It's an amazing record of a sorry era in Sydney.

 Underbelly-The Golden Mile starts next Sunday 10th April at 8.30pm on the Channel Nine network

Rich pickings on the Golden Mile

          Underbelly ,The Golden Mile is almost upon us. The third in the series of hugely successful mini-series about the real life Australian underworld brings us up to the present day. Where the original Underbelly dealt with a 10 year crime spree in Melbourne in the late 1990's when around 30 gangland murders took place, including 2 rival gangsters being blasted to death with shotguns as they sat watching their kids play football. The Golden Mile takes us into the heart of Sydney's Kings Cross.

         But what is this "golden mile'  business?. One newspaper writer has picked up on the theme (conveniently after the Shuttle mentioned it ) as often stated by tSS-the Golden Mile has always referred to Darlinghurst's Oxford Street gay strip replete with pubs, drag bars, sex clubs, heavy leather bars, saunas, male peep shows, adult book stores and everything in between.

          Walk a half a kilometer to the north, via the infamous underage male hustler hangout The Wall and one enters Kings Cross which has had an extraordinary revival in the past 5 years with numerous smart nightclubs popping up all over the place. But this area has never been referred to as the golden mile.

         Adverts are running thick and fast for the new series, shot in a downtown suburban Crows Nest shopping center which was turned, for a few short weeks into a garish neon lit Kings Cross of the 1990's . Bewildered pensioners thought they had stumbled into an alternative reality as they encountered yelling barkers outside The Pink Pussy Cat and the odd baseball bat wielding rival gangs in pitched battles.

         However a phone call to Underbelly's publicist brings a 'no comment' on whether series 3 will actually incorporate the real Golden Mile. The 2 areas have always been intricately linked with no qualms over sexual preferences when a quick buck was to be made or a bent copper to be nobbled.

        Indeed the history of gay Oxford Street has been as bizarre and dangerous of that of the Cross at times with murders, mysterious nightclub fires and stand over merchants threatening rival disco owners.

        And no mention has been sighted in the advertising for Underbelly ,The Golden Mile of whether the legendary Mr Sin, Abe Saffron is featured . Saffron, who died in 2006 was considered one of the most powerful organized crime figures in the country. The tiny 5'2" 'property developer' had a controlling interest in just about every strip joint, bordello and nightclub in Kings Cross. He left an estate of over $20 million dollars although experts estimate plenty more was squirreled away abroad. Saffron even successfully saw off the US Mafia when they tried to muscle in on the action in the 1970's.

       Kings Cross had a bohemian atmosphere from the 1920's on but it was in the 60's and the Vietnam War era when it blossomed into a full time chaotic nightclub and disco center. The influx of R&R (rest and recreation) US army personnel in their thousands saw the suburb bloom overnight into a land of nightclubs, strip joints, live sex shows (inviting audience participation) brothels and lots of illicit drugs. Amsterdam by comparison looked quite tame. And the local cop shop overlooking the area seemed oblivious to then illegal activities happening right at it's front door. 2 Royal Commissions later found dozens of corrupted policemen had become very rich by turning a blind eye.
      Along with the Yanks came some mysterious characters like Bernie Houghton of no fixed background who opened the Bourbon and Beefsteak that still operates for 22 hours of the day. Hougton was thought to be an ex-CIA agent involved with the infamous Air America. Bernie arrived with a suitcase stuffed with cash.
       Abe Saffron's Les Girls transvestite cabaret show was another runaway success as busloads of suburban mums and an occasional husband came night after night to watch the extravagant drag shows.

          And then there was the crossover to Oxford Street. Saffron become the backing partner for the lesbian entrepreneur Dawn O'Donnell who died in 2007.  O'Donnell's first career was as an ice-skating star. She settled down to run a butcher's shop before discovering there was more money to be made under the table by operating a gay drinking spot, the Trolley Bar.
     Followed by a lesbian sauna, Dawn was soon in her stride with a string of nightspots and sex bookshops on Oxford Street. always with Saffron in the background.
Jools, Patches, Flo's Palace, The Exchange Hotel, Ruby Reds, Capricos were all owned by Dawn and packed to the rafters night after night and when business got slow, there was always a mysterious fire and an insurance policy to collect. Or as Saffron  would put it, "time for a fire-sale !"
      Both Saffron and O'Donnell were at times in partnership with  Roger Claude Teyssedre who amassed a fortune in property from the proceeds of a number of gay saunas before he expired under strange circumstances from the effects of an Aid's related illness while being cared for by his newest lover Ludwig Gertsch who had kept friends from visiting the dying Frenchman in his last days. Low and behold, a new will appeared ,written 17 days before his death leaving all of his multi-million dollar fortune to Gertsch, cutting out previous beneficiaries.
         The cream of Kings Cross and Darlinghurst nightlife figures including Saffron and O'Donnell , a few dozen favored weeping Greek lads and dozens of drag queens made up Teyssedre's funeral cortege.
      In the family pew at the crematorium sat Gertsch with four of Teyssedre's ex-lovers. As for Gertsch, whatever the circumstances surrounding the will, Roger's fortune did him little good.
           An increasingly paranoid Gertsch said he was receiving death threats and fortressed the Paddington mansion left to him by Teyssedre.
           Less than 2 years later his trussed up body was found in bush land in the Blue Mountains. Gertsch had been strangled. Stories abound of spurned Teyssedre lovers hiring Italian hit men to do away with Ludwig. When police broke into his wall safe a week after his body was found, the million dollars in cash that had supposedly lain there since Teyssedre's death was missing. In it's place was a $5 note wrapped in a black cloth.

       If Underbelly 3 doesn't include some of these events it's really missing the plot. So far we know from advertisements that the likeable 'Teflon' John Ibrahim  (left with Paris Hilton ) features heavily. Ibrahim started out as the gangster George Freeman's bodyguard before becoming a nightclub entrepreneur who seems to have a share in most of the Kings Cross nightclubs and a few in Oxford street to boot.

             Police say he's an "organized crime figure". Word around town is that Ibrahim is shopping around for a publicity firm to help him cash in on the certain fame that will spread country-wide with the screening of the series but hasn't found a taker yet. Unlike Melbourne's Mick Gatto who featured in the first Underbelly series who has just published his life story. Gatto was charged with murdering the hit man Andrew "Benji" Benjamin , admitted shooting Benji dead but successfully claimed self defense. Publicist Max Markson looks after Gatto but apparently he declined Ibrahim's approach.

           And what of the department store heiress Juanita Neilson who went missing when she was running an activist newspaper and agitating to prevent rows of beautiful Victorian terraced mansions in Kings Cross from being razed to the ground by property developers ?. She disappeared after visiting a Saffron nightspot supposedly lured there by an advertising order. Everyone who lives in the Cross (including tSS) can point out a a different tall building where Neilson's body is supposed to lie, buried in concrete.

        tSS lives a few stories above the Cross in one of the lovely art deco buildings just a few meters from the El Alemain fountain that signals the beginning of this new 'golden mile'. Far enough away from the hullabaloo but close enough to hear the odd scream, bullet shot and police siren,. We'll be a fierce critic of this new series.

Current state of play :

Underbelly 1 :. Crime family matriarch Judy Moran  (right) whose family featured in the series (shooting others dead or being murdered themselves) has just been charged with being an accessory to murder after the fact, in connection with her brother-in-law's death.

 Mick Gatto is now an "employment and building consultant" and operates a crane hire business and is constantly perplexed why people think he's a criminal.

Drug lord Carl Williams serving 25 years to life for murder. (he was murdered in jail in 2010).

Underbelly 2 A Tale of 2 Cities : Abe Saffron-dead, gangster George Freeman-dead, drug baron Robert Trimbole-dead.

Underbelly 3 The Golden Mile: no-one has been charged over Ludwig Gertsch's murder. Dawn O'Donnell leaves $3M out of $16M to her widow Aneik Baten while a Lucien Freud painting listed in the estate is found to be a fake.

Underbelly3 The Golden Mile will begin screening in April on the Nine network.

reality check

      OK it's the silly season but that's no reason to go totally troppo. A tabloid we won't name (Daily Telegraph) is reporting that Hollywood actor Matt Damon is currently holidaying in Huskisson on the NSW South coast having moved on from Bateman's Bay where it's reported he "signed autographs".

     Damon, one of Hollywood's Mr Nice Guys is supposedly on The World, a vast cruise liner that is heading for Sydney and is like a 15 storey apartment block laid upon it's side. tSS  inspected The World the last time it visited Sydney and, well frankly they may be very nice apartments but the whole floating shebang is ghastly.

      It's like being trapped at sea in an apartment block full of neighbours you never wanted to know and are usually types like a Texan husband and wife who own a thousand bowling alleys and are worth a mint but would bore for The World.

 If Matt's aboard that boat I'll eat Madame Arcarti's hat. These shipboard apartments are mostly owned by people who occasionally rent them out-well just like a real apartment block but why would you want to spend weeks at sea when someone like Damon can hire his own Lear Jet if he wants to holiday in Oz with the kids-particularly as there would be very few other children aboard.

     There are some pleasant owners of these floating flats like Bill and Imelda Roche who sold the Nutrimetics empire for a squillion but they have even started spending less and less time aboard. The highly successful astrologer Athena Starwoman also purchased one when she found instant success in the USA but succumbed to cancer before she could even cross the threshold of her sea bound home.

    Frankly I'd prefer a trip on the Poseidon as at least you would get to go down with Shelley Winters.

And besides, tSS's World spy disguised as the PR agent says there is no-one named 'Damon ' listed onboard.

       This tale reeks for all The World like the story that engulfed the same newspaper when it discovered Sex in The City star Sarah Jessica Parker sipping a beer at the Rushcutter's Bay yachting club a few years ago and ran the pic for 3 days swearing blind it was her despite tSS saying 'you've got it all wrong folks". On the 4th day they admitted their mistake  (no apology of course) but the British lass who had a passing resemblence to Parker lapped up every moment of her new found fame.

     Of  course tSS may be completely wrong about this one but when have we ever been before  ?

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    The same tabloid has run a list of parties for New Year's Eve where one might spot Sydney's "A-List". That would be some feat finding this mysterious crowd who have been missing in action for decades and I doubt even David Attenborough could discover this rare and relatively unknown species.

   Still, they reckon there is an "exclusive" private party at the Top of the Town's $8.25 million penthouse "It's super private, ultra-glam and the guest list includes Charlotte Dawson and John Ibrahim." . Whatever.

Coals to Newcastle..

Local cops reckon he is a major figure in organised crime but the ever so charming nightclub entrepreneur John Ibrahim is credited with re-inventing the Kings Cross nightclub scene with an interest in 20 venues. Now help is on hand for the ailing Golden Gay Mile of Sydney's Oxford  Street which has fallen on hard times.

One of America's most famous transexuals Amanda Lapore, a young hybrid version of the older Amanda Lear and Joyce Wilderstein will open the new club Nevermind tonight. For 15 years Oxford Street has boomed as young hetero-sexual kids flocked to numerous discos and bars, oblivious to sexual labels. Now most straight kids are flooding to the Cross with it's amazing revival in top spots like Hugos, Candy's Apartment, Kit'n'Kaboodle, Lady Lux and the Mandalay Room.

  Lepore, model, fashion icon, nightlife hostess and performer has been the advertising face for Mac cosmetics and a variety of fashion labels and had her sex-change operation at 15 courtesy of then boyfriend, a plastic surgeon. She's been under the knife ever since refining various body parts.

But how will she fare in a street blessed with more drag queens and trannies per square mile than any on earth and which makes the legendary Singapore's Boogie Street (now demolished) look like it was a Sunday school picnic?

Sydney cocks in frocks are known for their cutting tongues and often, bruising upper-cuts. Word is out that some of the town's more high profile drag-queens are a somewhat miffed at this ring-in being invited to launch the new nightclub. She could always call upon Ibrahim's bouncers for help if needed. They  also guard the gay strip's nightspots. We'll see tonight at the launch party-billed as Saturday Fucking Night-whether there is a stiletto stand-off between Amanda and her local contemporaries.

The Classy Emerald City..

party pals-John Ibrahim, Paris Hilton & David Freeman

emerald

The last time the Shuttle attended the Embassy Club in Double Bay was in it's previous incarnation 10 years ago. That night 6 men arrived with pistols after an earlier fracas when one had been ejected from the club and declared "try throwing us out now !"

It was also the night then owner, the late stockbroker Rene Rivkin decided the nightclub game wasn't really for him.

On Saturday night the club re-opened in Double Bay under the auspices of David and Adam Freeman whose father George Freeman was once considered a kingpin in Sydney's seedy underworld. He was featured in the series Underbelly where actor Peter O'Brien, husband of actress Miranda Otto portrayed him brilliantly, according to Freeman's boys.

David and Adam have a partner -John Ibrahim who now has an interest in 20 night spots around the city. Ibrahim's brother Fadi is still recovering from an assassination attempt when 5 bullets were pumped into him as he sat beside his girlfriend in a Lamborghini outside their Castle Cove house in June.

John Ibrahim who will be featured in the next Underbelly 3 series is planning a tell-all book about his rise from driver and bodyguard to the now jailed drug king pin Bill Bayeh, to nightclub czar and owner of a security firm that supplies bouncers for most of Sydney.He also hangs out in Las Vegas with Paris Hilton and motorcycle champion Mike Doohan who is now Vegas based, operating a successful entertainment centre there. Ibrahim says he will give half of the 6 figure advance to the children's ward at the Royal North Shore hospital that saved his brother's life after the shooting.

Ibrahim associates have started referring to him as 'Teflon John'. Police claim they have a burgeoning filing cabinet full of information on the promoter but nothing has stuck yet. Murder charges were dismissed in court when Ibrahim claimed that rather than being responsible for the death of a drug dealer, he was attempting to save the man with the "kiss of life" after the man took a drug overdose.

Meanwhile Freeman brothers David and Adam are plowing through a lengthy court process in the Caribbean after their luxury yacht I'l Dapprima, was impounded off the Netherlands Antilles in February with $250,000 in a hidden compartment on board. Money laundering charges were dropped but the brothers were forced to fly home sans yacht.

The Ibrahim clan-with John at the helm has it share of woes as well. 2 of his brothers have been refused bail and are accused of a murder plot, his sister is accused of allegedly concealing over $3M in the ceiling of her home, another brother has been accused of kidnap and his 6'6" Tongan bodyguard has been arrested on drugs and weapons offenses.

And as usual, Rupert Murdoch's News Ltd tabloids have hired disgraced ex-cop Roger Rogerson to be their 'consultant' as the Underbelly series is screened on television.

Ahhh Sydney-so stylish at times.